From the Simple premise of an old man walking into a room, havrng JUSl buried his wrfe, Michael Begg's one performer play reflects on the life of an ageing Scottish war veteran. Performer Sean

66 "IE usr 6—13 Aug 1998

theatre 0 dance - comedy

Hay explains: 'Havrng been a member of a firing squad, he explores the nature of command and obedience throughout his life. It’s a tall order for a performer, to Jump about from old to young, but the piece is so rrch that working on rt is a bonus. There’s no costume changes, the stOrytelling is all centred on the performer.’ The play considers what Begg calls ’his guilt and accountability for the things he didn't say when he was younger, and when his wife was alive.’

Who hasn’t tried it, out loud, at least once? Hamlet's 'To be or not to be’ speech is the actor’s standard, and as such is pivotal to Manuel Dionis-Bayer's internationally acclaimed play. But Shakespeare is only the starting pornt for a parable about the nature of teaching and learning, sex and religion in which an ageing actor preparing to play Hamlet is vi5ited by a younger man; innocence meets experience and a complex relationship evolves. 'They fall in love and hate with each other. What begins as a master/disople relationship soon turns vampiric, and their power struggle is based around that universal soliloquy,’ says Dionis-Bayer,

A Spanish tragedy: Hamlet In The Mirror

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COMEDY PREVIEW

Rich Hall - The Shame Spiral/Otis Lee Crenshaw - Model

Citizen

Uncles. They're either your best mate or a total embarrassment. Rich Hall’s has been in jail. got hitched six times to six different Brendas, and has now followed Hall to Edinburgh to perform in his own right. Otis Lee Crenshaw, jailbird. C&W songwriter and shameless womaniser is.fronting his own band The Gadflys. Perhaps due to their natural antipathy to one another, Rich and Otis have never been spotted in the same room together. Rumour has it that they may, in actual fact, be one and the same.

Being a loser may run in the family. Hall failed to scoop the Perrier in 1996, the trauma of which he mocked last year he show which he insisted tip— toed along that thin line between comedy and a hostage situation. 'This year, it's just gonna be a straight hostage situation,’ he threatens. ‘Skip the comedy altogether. i’ll just get some Israeli terrorists to go out there for an

As intervrew techniques go, Jason Byrne's is not so much off the wall as over the top and round the bend. In a Channel Four show to be piloted in the autumn, mixrng comedy and music, he Will be vexrng the likes of Robbie Williams wrth such teasers as 'What’s